"In order to appreciate more fully the various involvements concerned in the legendary tale which a scrupulous and uninventive recorder of actual facts has selected for recital on this gratifying occasion, it is necessary to take into account the usages and conditions of primitive simplicity existing in the State of Yin at that distant era of what has been aptly termed 'our celestial and richly-embroidered country's crudely-chiselled narrative'."